No surprises! Facebook was clearly the winner as it is a great way to connect with other organizations, supporters, and the community. Nonprofits find a great value in using Facebook as they can publish a wide variety of content to gain support—pictures from the nonprofit events, videos of how they are involved with community, podcasts of upcoming events, interviews with supporters, news related to their cause, and so much more. Facebook seamlessly interfaces with other social networks such as Pinterest and Blogs that can help you spread the message and increase your fan base.

Facebook has also launched a new app center of which Causes and Petitions are probably good tools for nonprofits. Facebook has now introduced ‘schedule in advance’ option so you save time by scheduling your posts in advance and don’t miss posting content updates to your pages.

For most nonprofits, Facebook will undoubtedly become one of the top drivers of traffic to your website. It needs to have compelling content that will drive your fans to contribute, take action, and share your cause through their network. But, it can be challenging to generate interesting and engaging content time after time.

At the nonprofit symposium, Danielle Brigida, a speaker from National Wildlife Federation (NWF), @starfocus or @NWF, spoke about how NWF is driving traffic to their social media sites and promoting their cause. Take a look at their Facebook page:

Daniella’s advice was to generate content that caters to your audience and is relevant to your cause. NWF does this by asking their fans to participate in various contests, events, or by simply sharing content from other nonprofits who also share similar causes. National Get Outdoors Day, Nature Photography Day, and Nature Trail Days are some of the great examples of how NWF is engaging its fans.

Most speakers at the nonprofit symposium emphasized the need to recognize and appreciate supporters and fans publicly.

With over 43,000 likes, YMCA is doing a great job with their Facebook fan page. They give credit to their volunteers and recognize them on their Facebook pages. They also collect ideas from their fans and actually implement them, while recognizing the person who submitted that idea. What a great way to increase your fan base!

Final Score

Your Facebook page should have unique content that is different from what’s on your website. Make an effort to find new and creative ways to engage your fans. Make it easy to share your content by adding apps that will help you spread the message faster. This is an important part of fostering an active Facebook community. Monitor your Facebook page regularly to see what is working, take feedback, and strive to improve user-experience.